The recent pick-up in global growth is good news, but a durable return to healthy growth supported by productivity and trade will require stronger political commitment to implement policy packages to make growth more inclusive.

R&D activity can play a central role in raising productivity.

With persisting slower growth worldwide and in China, over-capacity in some heavy industry sectors, declining profitability, and intensifying competition from other, lower-cost emerging economies, corporate behaviour in China needs to change and focus more on efficiency and sustainability.

Never in the past 30 years has productivity growth been lower than since the 2008 global financial crisis, and never has income inequality been higher than it is today in Japan, and in the OECD area

Unemployment is still above 8% in Latvia and contributes to poverty, in part because many unemployed have been without a job for an extended period of time.

The Swiss economy has shown considerable resilience to shocks, but economic growth remains slow, and per capita income levels still hover at levels attained before the global economic crisis. Further reforms are needed to restore productivity growth, boost incomes and ensure that today’s high living standards and levels of well-being are passed on to future generations, according to a new report from the OECD.

Higher living standards and well-being, as well as convergence with more advanced economies, will depend on achieving higher productivity, which in turn would be boosted by more investment in capital.

Swiss GDP per capita stands amongst the top OECD performers. However, to face medium-term challenges productivity developments will be key to allow the country to maintain its enviable position.

Chile has been one of the fastest-growing economies in the OECD in recent decades. Sound macroeconomic management, bold structural reforms, such as trade and investment liberalisation, and buoyant natural-resource sectors, supported fast convergence in living standards.However, progress has slowed: declining productivity gains are limiting prospects for rising incomes and better-quality jobs; and inequality remains stubbornly high.

Greece’s recovery from deep economic depression is finally gaining traction, according to the OECD. Economic growth has started to pick up led by a rise in exports while labour market reforms have improved competitiveness and are helping to create jobs.

Chile’s export growth has disappointed over the past two decades. In particular, exports of goods and services - in volume - have only grown at 1.1% annually over 2009-17 and at around 2.0% for non-copper products and services, compared to 4.2% in the average Latin American country.

Over the past decade, limited structural reform and capital investment have held back productivity growth and improvements in well-being, and Thailand has lost ground vis-à-vis regional comparators.

Lithuania’s economy has grown faster than most other OECD economies over the past 10 years, unemployment continues to fall and public finances have stabilised after a long period of deficits and rising debt.

The Czech economy is thriving, with robust employment, expanding exports and falling government debt. Efforts should now focus on boosting workforce skills and innovation to improve labour supply and productivity, further reduce poverty and inequality, and green the economy, according to two new OECD reports.

Aggregate investment has declined markedly over the crisis and has yet to recover. Reviving domestic and foreign investment is crucial to supporting the economic recovery, deepen Greece’s integration into global value chains and raising living standards.

This report provides a detailed diagnosis of the youth labour market and education system in Brazil. It takes an international comparative perspective, offering policy options to help improve school-to-work transitions. It also provides an opportunity for other countries to learn from the innovative measures that Brazil has taken to strengthen the skills of youth and their employment outcomes.

“Crowdsourcing” pools the strength of the many to perform complex tasks–everything from funding a film to sequencing DNA. At its heart is trust–not a blanket belief in great institutions, but rather the confidence between individuals that each will do the right thing. Its power is being increasingly felt today, even in the world of international development.

This paper develops a simple model-based framework for stress testing fiscal consolidation strategies under different scenarios of future shocks

This paper re-estimates the elasticities of government revenue and expenditure items with respect to the output gap for OECD countries. These elasticities are used by the OECD to calculate cyclically adjusted fiscal balances. The study updates the earlier 2005 study using the most recent datasets and tax codes, the coverage being confined in this paper to 35 countries, the 34 OECD member states and Latvia.

This brochure describes the multiple domains where the OECD is engaged in fighting corruption and boosting integrity. It relates how the CleanGovBiz initiative is drawing together for the first time these anti-corruption tools under a single umbrella.

Existing Home Sales in Ireland decreased to 2519 Units in February from 2923 Units in January of 2020. Existing Home Sales in Ireland averaged 2296.48 Units from 2010 until 2020, reaching an all time high of 3671 Units in January of 2015 and a record low of 610 Units in January of 2010. This page provides - Ireland Existing Home Sales- actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

Housing Index in Netherlands increased to 138.30 points in March from 137.20 points in February of 2020. Housing Index in Netherlands averaged 96.27 points from 1995 until 2020, reaching an all time high of 138.30 points in March of 2020 and a record low of 41.30 points in January of 1995. In Netherlands, the house price index monitors prices of existing residential dwellings situated in Dutch territory sold to private buyers. This page provides - Netherlands House Price Index - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

Housing Index in Norway increased to 117.60 points in the first quarter of 2020 from 115.30 points in the fourth quarter of 2019. Housing Index in Norway averaged 62.53 points from 1992 until 2020, reaching an all time high of 118.80 points in the second quarter of 2019 and a record low of 17.80 points in the first quarter of 1993. In Norway, housing index refers to House Price Index for existing dwellings in the whole country. This page provides the latest reported value for - Norway House Price Index - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

In recent years, landlocked Paraguay has developed into South America’s star economy, with growth rates that are the envy of the region. We assess its business, political, diplomatic and social prospects and, not least, its pending and sensitive renegotiation with neighbouring Brazil of the treaty concerning the huge Itaipú dam

The number of people hired doubled between 2017 and 2020

Look behind the doors of a medieval Swiss castle that’s piquing much curiosity

Boris Johnson’s government was focused on Budget and Brexit — until disease took a grip

The BBC’s self-parodying show goes too far – in the direction of complacency, complicity and all-round smugness. But comedy can be a remarkable force for exposing the flaws of the society from which it springs  

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Inheritance tax rules are due for a shake up - FT Money editor Claer Barrett asks whether efforts to simplify the system can ever shake off its claim to be "Britain's most hated tax"? Next, experts discuss whether the IR35 tax rules are flawed or not. And finally, Alan Livsey, the FT's wine buff talks about an investment that is literally liquid - fine wine.

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Presenter Claer Barrett and guests explore how under 40s are using the Lifetime Isa to save for a property, or invest for the future. What strategies are younger investors taking? Plus the new rules on automatic compensation when broadband goes down, and the six ways pensions scammers are most likely to try and con you - would you fall for it? 

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Claer Barrett explores some of the biggest issues facing small investors with investment columnist Merryn Somerset Webb and Fidelity’s Maike Currie. 

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Our festival panel consign their financial nasties to Room 101

Money worries have taken on a new meaning with the market woes and the Budget next week

‘Anna Karenina principle’ suggests every unhappy economy is unhappy in its own way

Research paper published in journal Nature identifies number of alternative treatments

Whether we like it or not, spending on arms and security will rise in the next few years 

Loss would be a blow to London market and unpalatable to some UK-based fund managers

Smart meter group’s IPO boosts hopes of fundraising uptick after lacklustre 2019

Activist investor has almost quadrupled his stake in battered US oil producer

New daily cases of Covid-19 around the globe rose by the lowest amount in 12 days as 73,858 diagnoses were confirmed on Sunday, bringing the total to 2.93m

But statistics that show how many days one country is behind another are humbug

Governments scramble for coronavirus tests

Another on-demand transport app is making a move into payments to expand the existing relationship with its customers (and subsequent margins that it makes from serving them). Bird today announced the launch of Bird Pay, a service that will let people use its app to purchase items from local participating businesses alongside renting scooters. The service […]

As coronavirus-hit financial markets continue to flip-flop in the wake of bad news followed by pockets of hope, a startup that aims to introduce ordinary consumers to investing has raised a big round of funding. New York-based Stash, which provides a mobile-first route to managing money through investment — as well as retirement, custodial and […]

Health secretary pledges to increase tests to 100,000 a day in England by enlisting big companies and private labs

The struggles of Uber provide a stark lesson of the dangers of buying new issues

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized the manufacture of the Coventor ventilator, a new hardware design first developed by the University of Minnesota. The project sought to create a ventilator that could provide the same level of life-saving care as existing ventilator models, but with a much lower cost to help ramp […]

I see far more research articles than I could possibly write up. This column collects the most interesting of those papers and advances, along with notes on why they may prove important in the world of tech and startups. This week: one step closer to self-powered on-skin electronics; people dressed as car seats; how to […]

In response to calls for stronger action on hosts that aren’t casual users, Airbnb said it would start sharing some data with governments and getting hosts to agree to a policy of listing only their permanent homes. Here’s what Brian Chesky said in a post today: Today, we’re taking the next step to turn these principles into […]